Eclectic Eccentricity

The assorted ramblings of Aunty Bertha - west coast socialist

Friday, November 13, 2009

Hit them in the wallet

I have had it with the 2010 olympic games and all they stand for.

I am sick of our social safety net being systematically stripped to cover the ever increasing costsI am sick of draconian legislation being imposed upon us to keep the IOC and Vanoc happyI am sick of the sexism that will keep world class athletes from competing.

Yes, I should probably link to examples of all this stuff, but I am absolutely disgusted by it all and I just can't bring myself to hit teh google for it.

What I did do, was find a list of sponsors, partners etc of the 2010 oympics which I have listed below. I will be printing it off and checking it often so that I can be sure to give my patronage to businesses not on it.

Houghton said police don't planto use the device for anything more than communication.

"The primary function we're using the device for is its ability to communicate with very large groups with respect to crowd control, evacuations, tactical situations where we may need the loudspeaker portion of it," he said. (emphasis mine)

Note the phrase PLAN TO USE. They did not say the police won't use it, they said they don't plan to use it. What they are saying is:

They don't plan to use the device for anything more than communication[, but we will if we want to]. The square bracketed part of the text is the silent part of the sentence. Kind of like the b in debt (what the olympics has us up to our eyeballs in).

Scenario:

The police use the sound weapon on protesters and the police and afterwards are confronted with "you lied, you said you wouldn't use it as a weapon" and the police say "no, we didn't lie. We never said that. What we said was, we didn't PLAN to use it as a weapon."

That said, I don't believe for a moment that they don't plan to use it as a weapon. Why? Because if they do use it, they have to have a plan in place to know the circumstances under which to use it along with how to use it.

Monday, November 02, 2009

So, Vancouver City Council member, Andrea Reimer fires off the following tweet in reaction to BC Housing Minister, Rich Coleman's "force the homeless into shelters regardless of their feelings on the matter" bill:

(screen cap shamelessly stolen from citycaucus)

She acquiesced to demands for an apology (I'm too lazy to do my own screen cap):

Here's the thing. In this instance, I don't think she was out of line at all. While making pot-shots at someone's weight is very uncool, Coleman's war on the homeless is equally uncool.

Coleman being fat isn't really much different to people being homeless. In both instances one could either argue that they are victims of circumstance and have no control over their situations, or conversely, one could argue that they are responsible for their situations through their own choices.

Both are unsightly - better hide them away before the world comes to our city.Both put additional strain on our health system. The homeless have the right (or at least they once did) to refuse to go to a homeless shelter just as Rich Coleman has the right to refuse to go to Jenny Craig.